Category Archives: the clone wars

Dave Filoni tells Entertainment Weekly that the last arc of The Clone Wars is George Lucas’ “last statement about Yoda and The Force and how things fit together” and “absolutely must-watch story content.”

We tried several seasons to tell a Yoda arc, but the problem is he’d come in and be able to solve a problem in five minutes. In the end, George finally decided to tell a big story about The Force and the balance of The Force and what it means when some people appear after they die and some don’t. Fans have long wondered about that. This goes a long way to explaining that issue. These are things that were the backbone of his Jedi ideas. How can a Star Wars fan not get excited by that?

Filoni also touches on Order 66 and what the future may hold for the untold Clone Wars stories. Be warned, there is another small spoiler in the interview, so it may be best to read this only after you watch the final arc.

The 13 ‘Lost Missions’ episodes are streaming on Netflix now, along with the show’s first 5 seasons and debut movie.

On Monday, Lucasfilm released a trailer for “The Lost Missions” of The Clone Wars, coming to Netflix on March 7, along with all the previous seasons. < These thirteen episodes of bonus content bring together a mix of story arcs that would have been part of a sixth season of the show. Combining with what has been revealed previously, I’ve selected two dozen frames from the trailer, and try to figure out what they might teasing, including a translation of the file in Aurabesh. Continue reading →

Well Clone Wars fans, your wait is over: StarWars.com announced this morning that The Clone Wars will be streaming on Netflix as of March 7, including the debut of “the sixth and final season.” It’s the first time any official Star Wars content will be available on the service.

“The Lost Missions” are 13 episodes, and for the previous seasons they’ll be have “several director’s cut episodes never seen on TV” as well as the debut movie. The episode description does line up with the arcs we’ve heard about out of Germany:

In these eagerly anticipated episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, some of the deepest mysteries of the conflict between the light and the dark sides of the Force are revealed. An intrepid clone trooper discovers a shocking secret, Anakin Skywalker’s closest relationship is tested to its limits, and what Master Yoda discovers while investigating the disappearance of a Jedi could forever change the balance of power in the galaxy. Fans will not only be able to watch the thrilling finale, they’ll be able to see more of Star Wars: The Clone Wars than ever before as Netflix will also stream the director’s cut of seasons one to five.

Netflix posted a clip featuring Yoda and Qui-Gon:

If you don’t have Netflix streaming, Jeremy Conrad at Furious Fanboys has five options you can look into.

Jedi News has a (translated) German press release that says the “sixth season” of The Clone Wars will be debuting on the channel SuperRTL on February 15. They’ll be showing one arc each Saturday, apparently.

The story of Darth Maul had become an important one for the series and it was only fitting that we chose him for a comic adaptation. The comics will be based on four finished scripts that were written for Season 6 . These scripts came out of one of our story conferences with George Lucas. As they moved through the production pipeline, they became finalized scripts with a great deal of the actual design work completed. The designs you will see, the plot lines, and character development in these comic books are all coming directly from the TV production. I turned over all of the art to Dark Horse so they could create an accurate representation of what we were planning for the show.

He also hints that the ending of this storyline might not necessarily mean the end of Maul.

While we’ve known that the “bonus content” being worked on for The Clone Wars wasn’t necessarily going to bring closure to the series, Lucasfilm told Newsarama that at least one of the show’s loose ends will be told in comic form this spring, giving a big finale both for Darth Maul and for Dark Horse Comics.

Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir will be a four-part comic starting in May, based on unproduced screenplays. Newsarama interviews the writer, Jeremy Barlow, on what’s in store for this tale. With a title of Son of Dathomir, one might expect a return to the planet, and revenge against Darth Sidious, but Barlow also teases some more locales and characters as well, including a new one named Brother Viscus.

Newsarama points out that while this unproduced story arc is being told first in comic form, it doesn’t mean that it will only be told in this form. I wouldn’t take this as anything more than Lucasfilm simply leaving the door open, and not as a sign that it will be actually realized in animated form.

Although Newsarama is calling this storyline the series finale, the show’s “final arc,” there’s been some clarification from Lucasfilm folks:

The Maul comic is very cool, but it *wasn’t* the series finale. It was a 4-part arc that fell beyond what was already in production.
— Pablo Hidalgo (@infinata) January 8, 2014

If there's still confusion: the new Dark Horse miniseries only deals with a Darth Maul arc from near end of the series. Not a series finale!

Now, we don’t have a date – or even official confirmation – on the ‘Lost Missions’ tagline or even that the ‘bonus content’ will appear on Disney XD. All that comes from a November report out of Poland. The show images on the posters themselves are very low quality – despite the logos and text being clear and crisp – which leads me to believe these ‘posters’ are fan-made creations, not something official out of Disney or Lucasfilm. (The images themselves being drawn from the Polish video – or altered from old stills – could explain the low quality. UPDATE: Jedi News IDs the sources of the ‘stills:’ Both are from videos posted by the official site.) Nor is the size of the posters consistent with each other.

Like any wiki – the Wookieepedia is also a Wikia wiki – the Disney wiki in question can be edited by anyone with an account.

I’ve embedded both ‘posters’ below the cut, if you want to check them out.

In the final part of an interview with StarWars.com on The Clone Wars, Dave Filoni shared details about wrapping up the series, giving some hints about the bonus material, and having George Lucas as a mentor in creating Star Wars. He discusses concluding season five with Ahsoka’s storyline, and his sense of guardianship over characters from the series. When asked about the bonus material (which were episodes in production for a sixth season), he mentions:

When you look at level of importance to wrap things up for fans, I think that two story arcs that fans will get to see are really, really important for the overall Clone Wars story. So I’m very glad that fans will get to see them in their completed form.

It’s not like all of the bonus material that comes out was planned on really answering things for fans. It’s more, “This is where we were headed,” and the Yoda story arc [announced on Twitter] definitely gives a sense of closure. One of the story arcs, which is very short, is not essential to the overall story but it is a nice final showcase for one of the prequel characters.

Building on Filoni’s comments about the two story arcs, Pablo Hidalgo clarified via Twitter the bonus content is more than just these two arcs.

In the interview, Filoni also discussed moving onto Rebels and being the public face of Star Wars storytelling, reiterating about the new show: “I know some fans just see Rebels as an extension of Clone Wars, but it’s not. It’s an entirely different thing with a different feeling and a different vibe.”

Scum and Villainy at Yahoo debuted an interesting rumor this weekend: That Star Wars properties will, like their siblings at Marvel, head to Netflix. “The idea being tossed around right now is a series focusing on Cad Bane from The Clone Wars,” their source says. “But this is very early talks.”

“It’s just the one series but a number of other shows focusing on different characters is a very big possibility.”

Jason at Making Star Wars has heard this as well, but that it’s “so early it wasn’t even really notable at this stage.” And he heard it was live action, not animated, but even his source was skeptical that it’ll go anywhere.

Even if this is just the fruit of some brainstorming at Lucasfilm, at least The Clone Wars fans can take some solace that the show isn’t being swept under a rug somewhere. If Bane is in the running, I’m sure some of the show’s other breakout characters will have a chance at the spotlight as well.

While we are eagerly awaiting news of how the bonus content for The Clone Warswill take shape, the show picked up nominations for the 41st Annie Awards, given out for the best in animation. Announced by ASIFA-Hollywood, nominations for The Clone Wars included two individual achievement categories: Keith Kellogg for Character Animation in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production and Jason W.A. Tucker for Editorial in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production. The nominations were released today, and the award winners will be announced in February.

Our frequent interviewee Michael Price, writer of the LEGO Star Wars specials earned a nomination for Writing in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production for his work on The Simpsons. Juried awards have already been announced, including the Winsor McCay Awards to Steven Spielberg and Phil Tippett.

ILM also continued its streak of Annie award nominations, with four nominations, three of them in a single category of Animated Effects in a Live Action Production (two different teams for Star Trek Into Darkness and one for Pacific Rim). Another Pacific Rim ILM team got a nomination for Character Animation in a Live Action Production.